How to improve?

TarquinDuvall

Hi, thanks in advance for any help...

I am new to the game, been playing about two months and I am focusing on getting one character right before I try more. I have started a Stam DK DW/Bow and currently I am at CP230. I have nearly finished my first real armour sets going down the Hundings / Briarheart route to start with and the Selene Monster set, golding weapons where I can. I have practised my rotation, based around the Alcast Venom set and can get around 16-17k DPS with Ultimates and food, but no power potions.

I would welcome any advice, in particular to how I get my stamina up as I read players of my level sitting at closer to 40k Stamina pool and I am just about breaking 30k with food. I have all ability points in Stam and a majority of stam enchantments on armour. I know my race is a bit pants for this build but I am not going to spend 3-5000 Crowns now to change it and I cant imagine that explains much of the difference.

This is a link to my character (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=91169), showing gear, skills, CPs, food and ability points.

I know a bit about Rotation and Animation cancelling and how it is required to get decent DPS and I think I am doing this most of the time (I see my skills triggering at the same time my HA lands and on light weaving I see several bow skills landing in short succession)

I generally feel that I am a glass cannon, that is a little too "glass" and not enough "cannon".

Any thoughts, tips, ideas or pointing out of the obvious is welcome!

Thank you soo much for your input!

idk

I do not know if you are on PC or console. If PC I suggest getting the Combat Metrics addon.

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1360-CombatMetrics.html

With this you can see your uptime of personal buffs and the source of your damage. The main aspect is looking to practice weaving a light attack before each skill. That alone makes a good difference. On console there is nothing like this.

Outside of that it really takes practice. Practice until your rotation is smooth.

As for glass cannons, DPS are glass cannons in every MMORPG I have played. In ESO we have some skills we can use to help reduce damage we take but much is area awareness and knowing the mechanics to avoid the damage. Since the day this game launched it has been that way.

Edit: beyond that there is not much that can be done in the forums to help. Alcast has good information on his site. If you are not already in a guild that raids then find one. There are many guild on each server that are good training guilds and have people that will be happy to help you. BTW, most do not call themselves training guilds. Look for one you fit into and understand you may end up looking for a different guild.

TarquinDuvall

idk wrote: »

I do not know if you are on PC or console. If PC I suggest getting the Combat Metrics addon.

Console, Xbox one - thanks for the other info

El_Borracho

Some thoughts:

You look like you want to run a 5-5-2 build. You are losing a weapon damage boost by not running a 5th piece of Hundling's, and, it looks like you rarely get the weapon crit boost by running only 3 pieces on one bar. Plus, you are losing the proc of weapon damage from Briarheart when you switch bars. If possible, I would run all Hundling's body pieces with a 5 piece combo of jewelry and weapons for Briarheart. Its okay to run a dagger/axe combo if you want. And purple out your gear if you can. Don't gold the armor, but at least purple. Its a nice bump. Lose the Sergeant's greaves, they're not doing anything.

Hundling's is craftable and Briarheart is easily purchased through guild traders. Buy green or blue then improve it yourself, its cheaper. Definitely try to get some purple or gold rings. Helps a lot. I know, some of this is easier said than done.

As for skills, Rearming Trap and Silver Leash are nice boosts to DD, but you've seen what alcast recommends. I don't know why you're running Hardened Armor, unless you are soloing a lot of content

Edited: Almost forgot, did you enchant your gear with Kuta/Legendary glyphs? It helps. I couldn't tell off hand

NyxWrench

@El_Borracho 's suggestions are good, but you can improve some with a fewer number of changes. Change the legs to Hundings, and replace Materre's Bodkin with a Hunding weapon. That will give you 5/5 Hunding and 5/5 Briarheart all the time.

I'd also look at replacing the Briarheart belt and boots with differently trait-ed versions. Infused isn't a good choice for the 'small' armor pieces (the ones that give you ~325 stamina or magicka), and Sturdy is a pretty minor thing if you're not doing a tank build with sword and shield.


Actually, if I count things up, it looks like you have 5 pieces of Hundings — if you count all your weapons together. That is, you have 2 armor, 1 dagger, and 2 from bow. In case you don't know, you only get the current weapon line counted when determining set bonuses. So you either get 1 from the dagger, or 2 from the bow, but not both at the same time. This may have caused confusion in what you expected out of the set.

TarquinDuvall

Thanks for the great advice, I am working on replacing some items but I am just waiting on research traits to finish to enable that. If I understand things and follow El_Borracho's advice I need to get another Briarheart Dagger and Briarheart Bow.

If I follow Nyx suggestion then I get the same 5 Hunding, 5 Briarheart by creating a set of legs and a dagger (Closer to being able to do this with current research). I understand a bow counts as 2 slots and that you only get it based on current active bar.

Any thoughts on alternate trait to small items, belt and boots, if not infused?

Also any thoughts on what my stamina pool should be with food and how I get this closer to the 40k I hear other people talk about?

Thanks all!

NyxWrench

Small items tend to use Divines to boost your mundus bonus, as that's a good general purpose improvement. The other traits tend to only come up when you're going for something specific — Sturdy or Reinforced if you want a tanky build, Training if you're doing an XP grind, Well-fitted for your sprinting outfit, etc.

For your stamina pool, that'll improve some as your CP improves, because of a hidden bonus that you get, up to CP 300. The total bonus is +20% to your stamina (as well as magicka and health).

As for how to get to 40k, I unfortunately don't know. I suspect it's not possible with an Argonian, since they don't have any racial passives to boost stamina. Perhaps with the stamina mundus stone, but that's usually not a good trade-off.

As it is, my own calculations don't match the uesp site, so I don't feel comfortable trying to cite numbers. However, by the time you hit 300 CP, and get the legs swapped out and put a stamina enchant on them, you should be reasonably OK.

Sparr0w

BiS setup would be 7 medium, all divines with the lover mundus.

All stamina enchanted, or 1x health if you need dubious.

Run 1x set on your body, then 1x set on your jewellery and weapons is the best bet, I'd opt for briarheart on the jewellery and weapons since Hunding is crafted.

All weapons infused, front bar have 1x stamina steal, 1x beserking. Back bar 1x poison.

From the looks of it you have 2x spammables... both shrouded and rapid? Swap one out for Trap Beast (rearming morph). Also swap either Vigor or Blade Cloak for Rending slashes (dw line).

Also looking at your cp you're missing all of the jump points & focusing too much on penetration for being a low cp. The way it works is CP always rounds down, so if you have 4.1% or 4.98% you'll still only actually get 4% increase (Alcast just released a spreadsheet on this). Also Penetration would be a lower concern imo at your CP as it's not worth having a lot of penetration if you're penetrating with a wet noodle

What i'd personally run: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor?id=91507 (all enchants are purple quality)

Rotation: (pre buff with flames)

trap > swap > la > hail > la > trops > la > PI > swap > la > Breath > la > rending > la > claw > x4 skills (usually la>shrouded, but use this time to reapply buffs if they fall off)

El_Borracho

@TarquinDuvall, I agree with Nyx. You want to have the same 5 pieces of armor, be it Hundling's or Briarheart, and 5 pieces of jewelry and weapons in the other set (i.e. necklace, 2 rings, 2 one-hand weapons on front bar, bow on back bar).

I differ with Nyx in the body pieces vs. weapons/jewelry. Only reason I recommended running Hundling's body pieces is because they are craftable whereas Briarheart is an overland set. While its easier to craft Hundling's body pieces and weapons and improve them to the level you want, jewelry is a different story. While you can craft the basic white ring, you are going to need a lot of (expensive and hard to find) platings to get your jewelry up to purple, let alone gold.

Because of that, I think Briarheart weapons and jewelry might be easier to obtain. You can get tons in the Wrothgar dailies and dolmens. Or if you want to buy them from traders, its going to be cheaper than buying purple and gold platings to improve jewelry, even purple and gold level jewelry. Someone did a thread on this back in June. If you were to craft 3 rings and improve them up to gold/legendary, it will run you over 4 million in gold. While the price has dropped since then, its still oppressively expensive.

Good luck

TarquinDuvall

Thanks again for all the input...

I am going to work towards Nyx solution to get the quickest 5 of each set, by sourcing legs and dagger, which I can craft myself very soon. Then work to the neater solution of 5 x Hunding Armour and Briarheart Weapons and Jewellery, swapping over when I complete the necessary trait research and Wrothgar/Guild Trader sourcing.

Ill go for Divine + Stam Enchant on Armour, Infused on weapons and Weapon Dmg + Robust on Jewellery


@ Sparrow - Thanks for the CP rounding advice, I will keep that in mind when spending points from now on.

@ Sparrow - your LA rotation looks good, but id worry about the sustain without any HA. Currently I am tending to LA weave on the back Bow bar and HA weave on the front DW bar. Perhaps I can LA weave both bars for a higher burst DPS?

Also having Flames of Oblivion on backbar, does the passive of Major Savagery only affect the bow skills therefore? I have experimented with it on front bar slotted to get the passives on the HA Dual Wield weave

I chose to have Vigor slotted, purely for survivability as healers can be very hit and miss and if I am avoiding boss AoE, I can find myself out of range for healer. I know its sub-optimal for DPS but a dead DPS does no damage is my thinking.


I am thinking that this 40k Stam is only for top end gear/CP and perhaps not realistic for me in group / crafted gear at 230CP. Perhaps I am not far off where I should be and just need to work harder on rotation and boss mechanics.

El_Borracho

@TarquinDuvall sounds good. Might want to also consider weapon damage glyphs on the weapons, or absorb stamina on one 1-hander if you have sustain issues. A lot of stam DPS like Briarheart. Its a decent set that pairs well with others like VO.

Having Vigor is fine. I slot that when running Hel Ra bottom or PUG dungeons with the 1 Tank/3 DPS setups. I also will slot Purge when necessary. Don't need to be all damage skills, all the time. But, as said earlier, get Rearming Trap. Great for trash mobs and boosts weapon damage.

EDIT: You are right, Major Savagery/Flames of Oblivion has to be slotted with the weapon you want it applied to.